


Take It or Leave It

by intangible_girl



Category: Transformers: Rescue Bots
Genre: Break Up, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-21
Updated: 2018-03-21
Packaged: 2019-04-05 17:03:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14048811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intangible_girl/pseuds/intangible_girl
Summary: Hayley breaks up with Kade, Kade doesn't deal well, and Heatwave learns more about human romance than he ever wanted to learn.





	Take It or Leave It

Heatwave stuck his head into the bunker, expecting to see Blades. To his surprise, Kade was the one watching TV in the dark. He entered the room, one eyebrow raised.

“Isn't it a little late for you to be up?” he inquired. Kade didn't move except to bring the bottle in his hand to his lips and take a drink. Heatwave, who had noticed it but assumed it to be soda, brought both eyebrows down in a scowl.

“Kade, you have a shift tomorrow.” He glanced at the clock. “Scratch that, later today. What do you think you're doing?”

His partner still didn't answer, but Heatwave noticed the hand holding the bottle tighten.

“I asked you a question,  _ partner _ ,” he repeated. Still no answer. Heatwave stepped farther into the room and switched on the light. Kade scowled and threw up a hand to protect his eyes, but not fast enough to hide the redness around them. Heatwave hesitated.

“What's wrong?” he asked, in a gentler growl.

“Nothing,” Kade said, using the remote to switch the light back off. His voice was thick and his tone was flat. No anger, no heat. Just a defeated monotone. 

“It doesn't look like nothing to me,” Heatwave said. Kade kept silent. “Kade, you can—”

“Heatwave?” Kade said in the same flat tone. “Go. Away.”

Heatwave opened his mouth to protest, and then Kade did something Heatwave was pretty sure he'd never heard him do.

“Please,” he said. It was almost a whisper. Heatwave studied his partner for a long moment, weighing his concern against his desire to honor his partner's wishes and to avoid emotional conversations if at all possible. Eventually he grunted and left, though he stayed in the next room and kept an ear out for the rest of the night, in deference to the guilt worming around in the pit of his spark.

 

The next morning Heatwave answered a call to deal with a five car pile up dangerously near a cliff edge, fully expecting to be going solo that day. To his surprise, Kade was already there, fully kitted out and eyes only slightly red. He moved without making eye contact, making as though to climb into Heatwave's cab, but the bot backed up quickly out of his partner's reach.

“Oh, no you don't,” he said.

“What's the hold up?” Chief barked.

“Heatwave!” Kade protested, though his voice wasn't totally steady.

“Kade thinks he's going on a mission after drinking the night away,” Heatwave called. Chief Burns, already halfway into Chase's cab, stopped and sighed in exasperation.

“Really, Kade?” he asked flatly, looking at him levelly over Chase's roof. Kade glared at Heatwave, and then spread his hands in his father's direction.

“Dad, I'm fine, I didn't drink that much.”

His voice betrayed him, cracking and slightly slurred. Chief Burns shook his head slowly.

“I can't believe it. You know better, Kade, I know you do.”

“Dad, I'm not impaired, I can do this!” He closed his eyes and touched his nose. “See?”

“I know for a fact that your favorite party trick is doing that after seven shots of whiskey. You're staying here.”

“Are we going or not?” Dani called from above.

“Go ahead, you two,” Chief told them. “I'll catch up in a minute.”

“Dad, don't do this to me,” Kade plead pathetically. “I have to get out there, I have to do this.”

“Not like that you don't.”

“I'm—” Kade made to open Heatwave's door, and Heatwave transformed out of his reach. Kade clenched his fists and glared at his father. “I'll walk if I have to. I'm not staying behind.”

“Oh, yes you are,” Chief told him.

“I'm not—”

“End of discussion.”

“You can't—”

“That is an  _ order _ , Lieutenant.”

That stopped everyone cold. Even Blades, who had of course been listening in, showed up on Heatwave's screen for the sole purpose of letting his jaw drop. They had ranks, of course, every emergency response team did, but they never, ever used them. Kade let his hands fall to his sides, face blank with shock. Eventually his expression tightened into one of pure rage, and Heatwave tensed slightly, ready to intervene if necessary. 

But Kade just snapped off a salute and said, “Yes,  _ sir _ ,” before turning and stalking back into the firehouse. Chief sighed deeply and ran a hand over his face.

“I'll have a talk with him when we get back,” he told the two bots. “For now, let's just focus on the mission at hand.”

Heatwave had a hunch that last had been for Chief's own benefit rather than theirs, but he and Chase only exchanged glances before driving away.

 

After the cars had been sorted out and insurance information exchanged and the guardrail repaired, and even after having Boulder do a little spot repair on a tiny pothole in the pavement, Chief Burns finally admitted to himself that he was stalling.

“Alright, team, let's... head back,” he said, trying not to sound too reluctant. There had been none of the usual chatter and friendly banter on this mission, just terse instructions punctuating a pregnant silence. Even the civilians had seemed to notice, and they had filed off without argument or complaint, unusual for people from Griffin Rock.

“I am unsure of the protocol in a situation such as this,” Chase said on the drive back. “Clearly Kade showed extreme insubordination, but he did, in the end, follow your orders. I suppose putting a mark on his record would be sufficient?”

“I'm just going to talk to him, Chase,” Chief said patiently. “Kade may be a bit hot-blooded, but he wouldn't act like that for no reason.”

He could tell Chase was not quite satisfied with that answer, but he was too focused on mentally preparing himself for the conversation ahead to care much. They reached the firehouse too soon, and he squared his shoulders before knocking on Kade's bedroom door. To his surprise, Kade answered it immediately. Chief had been half-expecting him to be gone, but the tense, miserable expression evident in his whole body made him switch hats immediately from Chief of Police to Father of Kade.

“Can I come in?” he asked. Kade stepped aside wordlessly. Charlie took that as an invitation and stepped inside, closing the door softly behind him. Without looking at his father, Kade sat down on the bed and stared at the floor. Charlie sat down next to him, unsure of where to begin. Eventually Kade spoke, saving him the trouble.

“I just don't know what I did wrong this time, dad.” His voice was wavering on the verge of breaking, and he went on before Charlie could demand to know what about attempting to go on shift drunk was unclear. “Hayley—she dumped me again. But I think... I'm pretty sure this time it's for good. Like, for real over this time. I don't think she's gonna take me back again, and I don't— I can't figure out what I did.”

Charlie mulled this over. Hayley put up with a lot from his son, and it was beyond his powers of imagination to guess what he might have done this time that would have been too much for her.

“She wasn't even mad or anything,” Kade continued, and Charlie could tell this was going to be one of those 'conversations' where Kade talked and he listened. That was fine. Sometimes his oldest just needed a listening ear, and he was happy to provide it. “She just said it wasn't going to work and gave me all my stuff back. Even the stupid pink bear!” Kade stood and lifted a stuffed toy out of a cardboard box that contained, among other things, a stick of deodorant and a toothbrush. He waved the bear, which did indeed have an excessively goofy expression, in his father's face as though to punctuate his point. “The stupid pink bear! She's never given that back before. And how am I supposed to fix this if I don't know what I did wrong! She always tells me what I do wrong. I know...” He gripped the bear tightly, making its neck bend at a severe angle. His voice lowered but lost none of its intensity. “I know I'm hard to put up with. I know I don't always... say the right things, or do the right things. But I thought... I thought she... could see past that.”

Kade stared down at the stuffed bear as though it held all the answers but he didn't know the right questions to ask. Then he lifted his head to make eye contact with his father for the first time since he had entered the room, and his expression held the same desperation.

“And dad, if Hayley—the sweetest, most patient, kindest person in the whole world—if she can't put up with me...?”

“Oh, Kade,” Charlie said, softly, sympathetically, but Kade's face crumpled and he turned and threw the bear back into the box, making it tip over and spill out its contents. He shoved his fingers into his hair, arching his back and gripping his red locks tightly. 

“I tried,” he snarled through gritted teeth. Charlie wondered if he was struggling not to cry. It had been so long since he'd seen Kade cry. “I really did. I tried for such a long time to be a different person. You remember when I came back from the Academy?”

He turned to his father again, eyes dry but bright red. Charlie nodded softly. He didn't often think about the period of about two months when Kade, fresh out of fire school and newly an official employee under his father, had been distant and professional to an almost comical degree. He remembered chalking it up to finding their footing and had thought nothing of it since, especially when he'd gone right back to being himself once things had settled down. 

“But I just  _ couldn't _ .” Kade's voice had the horrible warbling of someone struggling with all his might not to sob. “No matter how hard I tried I couldn't stop being  _ me _ . And I decided that if I couldn't be someone else, then I was going to be me, and I was going to be the best  _ me _ there could possibly be, and if people couldn't see that, then that was their problem. And then I met Hayley, and of course she didn't like me, but I thought if I could get her to see the real me... And then she did!” Kade's eyes lit up at the memory. “After our first date she said she wanted to see what was underneath all that... you know...” Kade made a gesture that encompassed the entirety of himself. Charlie knew he was referring to the thick shell of brashness and arrogance that his son wore like armor. “And it was like... finally, there was someone who... she just... I was...” 

Charlie could see his son run out of words as he sat down on the bed again. There were moments, not many, but enough, when he would catch his son staring at Hayley with something like awe. He would reach over and brush some hair out of her face, just for the excuse to touch her, and then, the instant she turned to face him, the shields would come down again and he'd be making a joke or bragging about something. It pricked him, those moments, because he knew exactly why his son was like that. It occurred to him now that Kade himself might not know.

“Kade,” he said softly, but either his son didn't hear him, or he had finally found words again and wasn't going to let them get away from him now that he had them.

“And now it doesn't even matter, because she's seen the real me, and it's not good enough. I'm not good enough. Not for her. Not for anyone,” he added bitterly.

“Kade,” Charlie said sharply, commanding his son's attention. When Kade, startled, looked at him, he continued, more gently, “You may not remember this, but when you were seven years old I tried to send you to military school.”

His son's surprise affirmed that he did not remember. Charlie braced himself, and went on.

“You were always such an active little boy, more aggressive than your siblings, less frightened of punishment. It wasn't bad or wrong, it was just how you were. But I... I just couldn't understand. I thought I needed to train it out of you or something, and nothing I did seemed to work. I was comparing you to how I'd been as a child, and of course that wasn't fair. Your mother tried to talk me out of it, but I was dead certain there was something wrong with you, and I was determined to fix it.”

Kade was wilting, and Charlie hooked an arm around his son's shoulders and hugged him tight.

“I was wrong, Kade. Eventually I realized that, and I spent a long time trying to make it up to you, but I'm afraid it's affected you more than I realized, and I'm sorry.”

Kade appeared to mull that over, and then he leaned into the hug.

“Dad,” he chuckled, “I'm not a wreck right now because you tried to send me to military school once. I know I was a little hellion when I was a kid, and I don't blame you for worrying.”

“You might have had your moments,” Charlie admitted. “But I had mine too. You were a smart kid, Kade, I know you had to have... sensed how I felt.”

“Maybe,” Kade said, sounding unsure. “All I remember is one time you told me off for teasing Graham about his glasses, and then I saw him crying and realized you'd let me off easy.”

“I don't remember that,” Charlie mused.

“That was the first time I realized I... don't always pay attention to how other people feel.” He gave a bitter chuckle. “It didn't mean I got any  _ better _ at it, but...”

“Kade, I saw the way you played catch with Cody every day when he was in middle school, rain or shine. I've even heard you tell Heatwave to cut Blades some slack on occasion. You're a far more compassionate person than you give yourself credit for.”

Kade shook his head slowly.

“You are enough, Kade,” Charlie told him firmly. “Just as you are.”

His son simply leaned against him, head touching his.

“Thanks, dad,” he mumbled eventually, and then stretched and stood up. “I gotta go talk to Hayley.”

Charlie stood as well, studying this worn out, subdued version of his son.

“While I think that's a good idea, I don't think you should be driving yourself there in this state.”

“Hm?” Kade said, blinking at him. Then he frowned. “Oh. Yeah. I'll get Heatwave to take me.”

Charlie had his doubts about Heatwave's willingness to perform favors for Kade after the events of the morning, but he said nothing, just gave his son a slap on the shoulder in a silent bid for good luck.

 

Heatwave opted to stay in vehicle mode while Kade knocked on Hayley's door. He figured they wouldn't be there long, and Kade's apology to him only had so much currency in the favors department, though its sincerity had secretly impressed him. She answered the door and immediately made to close it.

“Hayley, wait,” Kade said, holding the door open. Hayley looked up at him warily. Humans were all tiny to Heatwave, but from lower to the ground he could see how Kade's muscular frame would seem imposing to someone of Hayley's size. Kade seemed to notice the way he was dominating the doorway and stepped back, removing his hand from the door. “I'm not here to ask you to take me back. If you've made up your mind, then you've made up your mind, and I respect that.”

There wasn't a chassis-type in the universe that made Heatwave feel butterflies in his spark, and he never expected to find one. But uninterested in romantic relationships though he was, even he could tell that was exactly the right thing to say. Hayley stopped looking like she was about to slam the door.

“I just wanted to see if you'd be willing to... to tell me why. To tell me what I did wrong. So I can... do better next time.”

The way Kade's attempt at cheer cracked his voice on the last part put the lie to his words. Hayley sighed in sorrowful frustration.

“Oh, Kade,” she said, sounding like it hurt her to say his name. She studied him for a long while, and then looked past him to Heatwave.

“I can't talk to you alone, Kade, I don't... trust myself with you yet.” She bit her lip upon seeing a complicated expression come over Kade's face. “But if you're okay with it, Heatwave, I'd be willing to talk in, uh... you.”

English had no unawkward way to refer to humans riding in bots, Heatwave mused, and humans seemed far more uncomfortable with the idea than he felt it warranted. As long as they had his permission, what did it matter? Though in this circumstance he felt almost inclined to deny his permission as a matter of course. He knew enough about romance to know that their conversation had the potential to turn messy real fast. Still, Kade was pleading at him with his eyes, and Hayley had asked very politely, so he gave a mental shrug, turned off his group com channel, and opened his doors.

“Sure,” he said, and the two of them climbed in, settling in awkwardly. There was a long, awkward silence, punctuated by awkward shifting of posture and awkward, aborted eye contact, before finally Heatwave couldn't take it anymore and ahem'd meaningfully. Hayley gave Kade one last look and then proceeded to stare at Heatwave's floor mats.

“Kade, do you remember our first date?” she asked. He nodded eagerly.

“Of course I do. I gave you a Venus flytrap.”

She chuckled at the memory.

“Because you said someone who loved botany as much I did wouldn't be satisfied with plain old roses.”

“Well, you seemed to like it,” Kade said hesitantly. 

“It gave me a glimpse of someone who was more than just an obnoxious high school quarterback. Someone thoughtful, and kind. And you've given me glimpses of that person so many times over the years, but...”

“But not enough,” Kade finished for her, bitterly. Hayley sighed again.

“That's not what I was going to say.” She hesitated. “I really like that person, Kade, and over time I've come to accept the obnoxious side of you too. But when you're obnoxious, you're  _ really  _ obnoxious, and sometimes, you just don't know when to quit. And then we fight, and we say things, and we break up. And then you apologize, and I take you back, because then you show me that glimpse of the compassionate person you can be when you really try, and I can't say no to that guy. But I am  _ tired _ of this cycle we're in, Kade. And I am not going to wait around to see if I can change you, because I swore to myself I'd never be that girl, and now that I know you, I know it also wouldn't be fair to you either.”

There was silence as Kade mulled that over.

“I guess that's fair,” he mumbled, and glanced at Hayley. “So, that's it then?”

She nodded, lips pressed tightly together. Kade took in a deep breath, as though about to say something, but Heatwave (who would freely admit he had something of an obnoxious streak himself, though not nearly as wide as Kade's) interrupted him.

“Pardon my ignorance, but is that really it?”

They both looked at him, startled. He pressed on.

“You fight a lot? That's your problem? You've always fought a lot, why is now any different?”

Hayley sighed that sigh that humans made when they were forced to try to explain a difficult human concept to a bot. Heatwave knew that sigh well.

“I thought it would... get better over time,” she said. Heatwave looked at her skeptically.

“But it has,” he pointed out. Hayley returned his skepticism. He met her gaze. “You guys don't fight nearly so often now. Heck, when you were first dating, it happened almost every week.”

Hayley digested this, her expression softening, then suddenly turning to a scowl.

“Heatwave!” she accused. “You were supposed to be on my side!”

“I'm not on anybody's side!” he retorted. “I'm just confused. Heck, I don't know why you put up with Kade in the first place. He gave you a flower that  _ eats flies _ ? Even I could romance somebody better than that.”

Both humans laughed, and Heatwave scowled at them. 

“Oh, sure, you're fighting with each other, but you can agree to laugh at the silly bot who doesn't understand earth customs.”

They were instantly repentant, which annoyed him even more.

“Heatwave, we didn't mean—” Hayley began, but he cut her off.

“Well, I do.” He opened his doors and shook his cab a little. “I did what you asked, Kade, I brought you over here. Now find your own way back.”

“Heatwave, come on, don't be childish,” Kade chided, and Heatwave dumped him out. Hayley exited before he could do the same to her, though he would have done it much more gently in her case. Once they were both out he transformed, bending down over them both.

“You're the ones who are being childish. You fight with the people you care about, it's a fact of life. Get over it.”

He changed back into a truck and drove off at top speed, feeling antsy. What had he been thinking, getting mixed up in this mushy stuff? What had he been thinking, lecturing two humans on human romance? He didn't know the first thing about what it was like to fall in love, and he doubted he ever would. Had no desire to. Where did he get off, telling them to just 'get over it?' He took the left turn at Main instead of the right one, and went up Old Canyon Road, driving for the sake of letting his wheels turn.

Halfway up he realized that Doc Greene's lab was this way, and without really thinking about it, he drove in that direction. Eventually he came to a stop in the parking lot and transformed, feeling foolish. Doc saved him from too much awkwardness by walking out at that moment.

“Ah, Heatwave, what fortuitous timing!” The doctor deposited the large piece of machinery he'd been carrying into Heatwave's hands. “Would you do me a favor and hold that steady for me while I screw in some components?”

“Uh, sure, doc,” Heatwave said. “If you don't mind me asking, what were you going to do with it if I hadn't come along?”

Doc Greene chuckled absently as he wielded a drill and some screws, attaching a bit of equipment to the machine. 

“There is an industrial vise in the garage, but this is much more efficient. If you could rotate it ninety degrees this way, please.”

Heatwave did so. Doc pulled another tiny thing from his pocket and began screwing it in.

“What brought you up here, Heatwave? I'm not keeping you from anything, am I?”

“Oh, uh, no, not really. I was just... in the neighborhood.”

Doc Greene chuckled again.

“I see. I heard there was some excitement at the firehouse this morning.”

Heatwave sighed.

“News sure travels fast around here.”

Doc Greene smiled.

“One of the many mixed blessings of living in a small, tight-knit community. I didn't hear any of the details, only that Kade was involved somehow.”

Heatwave considered. He didn't owe Kade any favors right now, but somehow laying out his faults to the doctor didn't seem right.

“Kade's... having a tough time right now. He and Hayley just broke up.”

“Again?” Doc muttered, wiping the grease off small spring with the corner of his lab coat. “It seems like it's always something with those two. What did Kade do this time?”

Heatwave was surprised at how defensive Doc's assumption made him feel. 

“Nothing,” he said, before he could stop himself. Doc raised an eyebrow.

“Oh?”

“Yeah, Hayley just...” Well, he'd soon hear all about it through the grapevine anyway, Heatwave considered. “Decided she'd had enough.”

“Well, I can't say I'm surprised. Oh, but don't tell Kade I said that,” Doc added hastily. 

“Really?” Heatwave asked. “You're not surprised?”

“Well, no,” Doc admitted, gesturing for him to lift the object up higher. “Hayley is an intelligent, self-possessed young woman, and Kade is a very headstrong man with some very... old-fashioned ideas about romance. I can see how she'd be attracted to someone like that, but it was a long shot for it to work long-term.”

Heatwave scowled into the middle distance, since Doc's face was hidden by the machine and thus unavailable to be scowled at.

“I don't see why,” he said bluntly. “Yeah, they fight, but they obviously like each other. Why shouldn't it work?”

Doc chuckled, and Heatwave could just make out his head shaking back and forth by the way his dreadlocks moved across his back. 

“Unfortunately, it takes a little more than just liking someone to make a relationship work.”

“Well, yeah, but if you like someone, that should be able to make up for anything else, right? Otherwise, why would you take a liking to them in the first place?”

Doc Greene slowly emerged from under the machine, studying Heatwave intently. Eventually he dropped his gaze back to his work.

“I think you might be confusing liking someone with being attracted to them,” he said.

“I guess?” Heatwave turned the machine around so Doc could access the back. “What's the difference?”

“Ah, um, hmmm, how do I put this?” Doc hemmed and hawed for a few moments. “It's like this: evolutionarily speaking, modern man is not that far removed from his caveman ancestors. We emerged a mere ten thousand years ago, is all.” Heatwave blinked. He was older than that. Older than the entire human race. The idea made him feel... strange. Doc went on: “Physically, our bodies and our brains are still optimized for survival in much harsher conditions than we tend to find ourselves in. For instance, our brains are wired to find certain traits in prospective mates attractive, traits which indicate that their genes are worth passing on. For males looking for females, this means ample hips for easy childbirth; red lips and rosy cheeks that indicate good health, and so on.”

“Wait, so that's why human women wear makeup? To look healthy?”

“Ah, well, that's the theory. I think it's moved a bit beyond that by now, though.” He grunted as he struggled with a recalcitrant screw. “And—ungh—for females, this means looking for males who are larger, more muscular, and more aggressive, because those are the traits of a good hunter.”

“So Hayley likes Kade because he looks like a caveman?”

Doc looked up frantically, but smiled and waved his drill knowingly at Heatwave when he saw he was only teasing. Heatwave went on.

“Okay, so it's not quite that simple, but, well, aren't you all smart enough to know that big muscles and red lips don't matter as much anymore?”

“Would that merely being aware of that fact were enough, Heatwave,” Doc sighed. “The urge to procreate is second only to the survival instinct, and sometimes even supersedes it. It is not something we always have conscious control over.”

“I—I mean, I know that.” Heatwave was getting frustrated. “Love makes humans do stupid things, I get that. What I don't understand is how it can  _ keep _ making you do stupid things. I thought it was supposed to wear off after a while, like a toxin running its course.”

Doc Greene stepped away from the machine and had himself a good belly laugh. Heatwave waited for him to finish with ill patience. 

“Heatwave, the fact of the matter is, human kind is in a state of liminality: still wired for harder and more savage times, but living in the modern world, and we have yet to fully reconcile those two facts. It's a miracle we manage to function at all sometimes. Bring that over here, if you please.”

Doc gestured for Heatwave to follow him, and Heatwave did so, totally unsatisfied.

“But why would she decide to end it  _ now _ ? They've been together for years. If she was only attracted to him because of caveman stuff, then shouldn't she have figured that out by now?”

Heatwave set the machine down on a table, but Doc made no move to work on it. He was staring pensively at nothing.

“It can be very... hard... to let someone go when you've fallen in love with them,” he said softly, and then shook his head, coming back to himself. “Human children require far more nurturing than any other species on the planet, and our survival as a species once depended on both parents working together for the entirety of that time. Thus, once two people have come together, it can be very difficult for them to want to leave, even when they know they should.”

_ I can't trust myself with you right now, Kade _ . Heatwave felt an instant and overpowering sense of guilt. 

“Doc, I gotta go. Thanks for the advice.”

He transformed and drove off, though not before Doc called after him,

“Come again any time, for a chat or for some work. Either one is fine.”

 

Charlie poked his head into the garage when he heard Heatwave drive up, trying to asses the situation. He didn't want to interfere if it wouldn't do any good, but his fatherly side couldn't help feeling anxious about his son. Heatwave remained in vehicle mode, Kade still inside. They seemed to be talking. Eventually Kade got out, and then looked back, apparently listening to Heatwave say something. His eyes went wide, and he slapped Heatwave's chassis, shouting,

“The Venus flytrap! She didn't give it back! There's still a chance, she still— Heatwave, you gotta take me back.”

He tried to open the door, but failed. Heatwave transformed, frowning.

“What happened to respecting her decisions?”

“Oh, what do you know?” Kade sneered. “If she really thought it was over she would have gotten rid of the thing that reminds her what a great guy I really am.”

“You are insufferable!” Heatwave shouted. “Is that how you really think? Come on, Kade, use some sense.”

“I don't want to hear that from you!”

“What, you want me to drive you back there for the second time in an hour so you can beg her to take you back  _ again _ ? How well do you think that's going to go over, huh?”

Kade appeared taken aback by this.

“I thought bots didn't fall in love,” he said suspiciously. Heatwave rolled his optics.

“We don't. Well, I don't. But I'm also not stupid.”

“So you think I should give her a while before I go talk to her again?”

“I think you should leave her alone.”

Kade clenched his fists.

“Whose side are you on, anyway?” he demanded. Heatwave gave an exasperated sound and threw up his hands.

“I don't know! You like her, she likes you, but you drive her crazy and she doesn't want to be with you. How am I supposed to make sense of that?”

“You don't have to! You're just a dumb robot, you don't have to... to...”

Even from his distant vantage point, Charlie could see Kade regretting the words almost as soon as they left his mouth. Both of them watched Heatwave carefully, but instead of getting angry, he seemed almost to deflate.

“That, Kade,” he said calmly. “That's why Hayley left. You just can't keep your big mouth shut even when you know you should, and some people just can't take that forever.”

Kade's fists clenched tighter, his teeth grinding. Slowly, however, he began to come down from his fury, the shaking in his limbs slowing and his fists relaxing. He glared up at Heatwave.

“What am I supposed to do then, O wise one?” he spat. “Sew my lips shut? Should I go join a monastery or just live on top of a mountain? Here's an idea: why doesn't everyone else cut me some slack once in a while? I can't help the way I am. This is me, take it or leave it.”

Heatwave studied his human partner, who still had a hand pointing to his chest.

“Take it or leave it,” Kade repeated expectantly. Heatwave scoffed.

“What, is that an ultimatum?” 

“Maybe,” Kade said, suddenly uncertain, but definitely too stubborn to back down even from his own faults. Heatwave rolled his eyes, but the gesture was fond.

“Then I take it, you big weirdo. What do you think I've been doing the last four years?”

This made Kade soften. He dropped his hands to his sides and stared at the floor.

“Yeah, I know,” he mumbled. 

“I mean, just because your girlfriend left you doesn't mean I'm gonna,” Heatwave continued. Kade gaped at him.

“Was that supposed to be comforting?” he wondered incredulously.

“No—I—” Heatwave sighed. “You know I'm no good with this mushy stuff.”

“Yeah, well, me either,” Kade offered.

They stood in uncomfortable silence. Then Kade mumbled,

“You wanna go watch Cupcake Hoarders?”

“Sure,” Heatwave mumbled back. Making sure not to make eye contact, they made their way to the bunker. Charlie, trying not to laugh, quietly closed the door he'd been listening from behind and went back to the dining room. 

 


End file.
